Why Do Shoppers Choose your Pack? The Impact of Product Package Design on Consumers’ Brand Stereotypes and Purchase Intention

Given the pivotal role of product package design in the visual representation of brands, we argue that its associated aesthetic, functional and symbolic values may affect brand stereotypes, i.e. warmth and competence, hence consumer purchase intention. We also argue that such effects are conditional on consumers’ centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA), representing consumers’ aesthetical sensitivity and dominance when evaluating the product’s presentation. Through a survey (n=661) examining consumers’ reactions toward new packaging designs, we find that only symbolic and functional dimensions positively influence brand warmth and competence. Only brand warmth significantly affects and mediates these effects on purchase intention. CVPA elevates the effect of symbolism on brand warmth while negatively moderating the effect of aesthetics on brand warmth. The results contribute to the product package design literature and the practical implications of these findings are discussed

Can Upward Brand Extensions be an Opportunity for Marketing Managers During the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond?

Early COVID-19 research has guided current managerial practice by introducing more products across different product categories as consumers tried to avoid perceived health risks from food shortages, i.e. horizontal brand extensions. For example, Leon, a fast-food restaurant in the UK, introduced a new range of ready meal products. However, when the food supply stabilised, availability may no longer be a concern for consumers. Instead, job losses could be a driver of higher perceived financial risks. Meanwhile, it remains unknown whether the perceived health or financial risks play a more significant role on consumers’ consumptions. Our preliminary survey shows perceived health risks outperform perceived financial risks to positively influence purchase intention during COVID-19. We suggest such a result indicates an opportunity for marketers to consider introducing premium priced products, i.e. upward brand extensions. The risk-as�feelings and signalling theories were used to explain consumer choice under risk may adopt affective heuristic processing, using minimal cognitive efforts to evaluate products. Based on this, consumers are likely to be affected by the salient high-quality and reliable product cue of upward extension signalled by its premium price level, which may attract consumers to purchase when they have high perceived health risks associated with COVID-19. Addressing this, a series of experimental studies confirm that upward brand extensions (versus normal new product introductions) can positively moderate the positive effect between perceived health risks associated with COVID-19 and purchase intention. Such an effect can be mediated by affective heuristic information processing. The results contribute to emergent COVID-19 literature and managerial practice during the pandemic but could also inform post-pandemic thinking around vertical brand extensions

Do green practices really attract customers? The sharing economy from sustainable supply chain management perspective

The notion of the sharing economy has been introduced in many sectors and provided significant benefits to consumers and asset owners. Despite the remarkable improvement of the sharing economy in recent years, its relationship with sustainability remains insufficiently researched. This study adopts a sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) perspective. A large-scale survey with 420 participants showed that investment recovery (IR) practices and corporate social responsibility (CSR) conducted by sharing economy platforms significantly and positively affect customers’ intention to use sharing economy-based services/products, whereas internal green management (IGM), supplier green management (SGM), eco-design (ECD) and customer green management (CGM) practices do not. A follow-up qualitative study with ten participants provided further explanations and supported the findings of the survey. This study links the sharing economy and sustainability by testing the effectiveness of sharing economy platforms’ sustainable practices and proposes the best practices for sharing economy platforms to maintain a long-term sustainable marketplace

Support your country and buy Chinese brands – would Chinese consumers buy it?

This study explores the impact of advertising messages that contain national identity content on Chinese consumers’ purchase intention and actual purchase. A scenario-based experiment (n = 357) and an open-ended qualitative survey (n = 26) illustrated that Chinese consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intentions are positively influenced by national identity. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that such an advertising strategy is not sufficient for increasing actual product sales when employed on its own. The impact of these advertisements on actual purchase is affected and moderated by utilitarian and hedonic values

Comparison of Anterior Segment Optical Tomography Parameters Measured Using a Semi-Automatic Software to Standard Clinical Instruments

10.1371/journal.pone.0065559PLoS ONE86

All-codon scanning identifies p53 cancer rescue mutations

In vitro scanning mutagenesis strategies are valuable tools to identify critical residues in proteins and to generate proteins with modified properties. We describe the fast and simple All-Codon Scanning (ACS) strategy that creates a defined gene library wherein each individual codon within a specific target region is changed into all possible codons with only a single codon change per mutagenesis product. ACS is based on a multiplexed overlapping mutagenesis primer design that saturates only the targeted gene region with single codon changes. We have used ACS to produce single amino-acid changes in small and large regions of the human tumor suppressor protein p53 to identify single amino-acid substitutions that can restore activity to inactive p53 found in human cancers. Single-tube reactions were used to saturate defined 30-nt regions with all possible codon changes. The same technique was used in 20 parallel reactions to scan the 600-bp fragment encoding the entire p53 core domain. Identification of several novel p53 cancer rescue mutations demonstrated the utility of the ACS approach. ACS is a fast, simple and versatile method, which is useful for protein structure–function analyses and protein design or evolution problems

Basis for the gain and subsequent dilution of epidermal pigmentation during human evolution: The barrier and metabolic conservation hypotheses revisited

The evolution of human skin pigmentation must address both the initial evolution of intense epidermal pigmentation in hominins, and its subsequent dilution in modern humans. While many authorities believe that epidermal pigmentation evolved to protect against either ultraviolet B (UV-B) irradiation-induced mutagenesis or folic acid photolysis, we hypothesize that pigmentation augmented the epidermal barriers by shifting the UV-B dose-response curve from toxic to beneficial. Whereas erythemogenic UV-B doses produce apoptosis and cell death, suberythemogenic doses benefit permeability and antimicrobial function. Heavily melanized melanocytes acidify the outer epidermis and emit paracrine signals that augment barrier competence. Modern humans, residing in the cooler, wetter climes of south-central Europe and Asia, initially retained substantial pigmentation. While their outdoor lifestyles still permitted sufficient cutaneous vitamin D3 (VD3) synthesis, their marginal nutritional status, coupled with cold-induced caloric needs, selected for moderate pigment reductions that diverted limited nutritional resources towards more urgent priorities (=metabolic conservation). The further pigment-dilution that evolved as humans reached north-central Europe (i.e., northern France, Germany), likely facilitated cutaneous VD3 synthesis, while also supporting ongoing, nutritional requirements. But at still higher European latitudes where little UV-B breaches the atmosphere (i.e., present-day UK, Scandinavia, Baltic States), pigment dilution alone could not suffice. There, other nonpigment-related mutations evolved to facilitate VD3 production; for example, in the epidermal protein, filaggrin, resulting in reduced levels of its distal metabolite, trans-urocanic acid, a potent UV-B chromophore. Thus, changes in human pigmentation reflect a complex interplay between latitude, climate, diet, lifestyle, and shifting metabolic priorities

Factors Influencing Foreign Consumers to Adopt Mobile Payment Extensions Offered by Multinational Mobile Messaging Applications

Although multinational mobile messaging applications, such as WeChat, have successfully introduced new mobile payment services into local markets where the application is originated, it remains a challenge to penetrate foreign markets. This research examines the factors influencing foreign consumers to adopt different mobile payment services introduced by multinational mobile messaging applications. The preliminary study finds that foreign consumers are most likely to use e-ticket purchase applications and least likely to adopt personal loan applications. This guides us to further understand the factors causing consumers to either adopt or reject these discrete mobile payment services. The main study has found that perceived usefulness is the key factor influencing foreign consumers’ when selecting such a service. Perceived ease of use increases the likelihood that a foreign consumer will identify the usefulness of the service, which consequently enhance adoption. More significantly, personal innovativeness and social influence can positively moderate such a mediation effect

Consumers’ Emotional Responses to Brand Extensions: An Examination of the Cognition-Emotion-Action Process Using the Cognitive Appraisal Theory

Brand extension (BE) strategy involves an established brand introducing products in a similar (high fit) or dissimilar (low fit) product category. For instance, Colgate’s mouthwash and Colgate’s ready meal represent similar and dissimilar BE to Colgate’s core products, i.e. toothpaste. While launching BE helps brands to increase revenue streams, such strategies are not always successful. One of the reasons behind failures might be a negative emotional response to such products, which is likely to hinder adoption. Applying the Cognitive Appraisal Theory (CAT) to this context could help us understand how: (1) emotional responses are formed, (2) emotions affect behaviors, and (3) to manage emotions for successful BE launch. CAT proposes that emotions are important predictors of consumer behavior and result from cognitive evaluation (appraisal dimensions) of an event or object. While the CAT framework could be used to explain antecedents and outcomes of emotional responses in the context of BE, it remains unknown what are the main BE evaluation criteria (appraisal dimensions) and how perceived (dis)similarity of a BE to a parent brand (fit) affect those evaluations. Furthermore, we do not know what emotions may be evoked and how those emotions can affect behavioral outcomes for BE, such as purchase intention. The current research addresses this gap by investigating how low/high fit brand extensions activate the cognitive appraisal process. In initial research stage (n = 1424), we develop a scale measuring emotional responses to BE and identify cognitive appraisal dimensions (goal congruence and goal relevance) resulting from exposure to BE in high/low fit conditions. In a series of experiments, we show how cognitive appraisal can further influence emotions and behavioral responses to BE. The results shed lights on affecting consumers’ emotional responses to BE through managing cognitive responses to those products